Laif Meidell: Why you should look at U.S. Treasury data instead of jobs report

10:11 PM,
Mar. 6, 2014

Laif Meidell

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Laif Meidell

Before covering the bond market's performance over the past week, let me make a couple of comments about the employment situation report or "jobs report," as it's often called, that comes out Friday. The jobs report provides us with two of the best measures of the U.S. economy: how many jobs were created in the prior month, and how many people were unemployed.

The jobs report is a compilation of survey data of a fairly small sample size. It is based on the week of the month containing the 12th, and is released on either the last Friday of that month or the first Friday of the following month. Thus, it ...